What might have it been like to be an US Asian-American GI in World War II?

What was it like to be a POW during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?

Description:

Click on the “Search the Veterans Collection” to get started. This brings you to a page with three tabs: Search, Browse, and Help.

The database is searchable by keyword, either by all fields together or by a specific field. You can also limit by the following criteria:

Conflict or Era (WWI through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars)

Branch of the Service

Prisoner of War y/n

Gender

Digitized Collection y/n

Transcript y/n

You can do a search with just the limiters and no keywords. This can be useful for finding POW accounts from women or other specific groups.
For an example search, choose Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and click “yes” for transcripts. Six on the first page have online materials. If you need something now, say yes to “digitized collection”

Each entry contains: Name of Veteran/Civilian, Service Location: Service Unit/Ship, Highest Rank (in Service), Notes, Name of Interviewer/Donor, Contributor/Interviewer Affiliation and Collection IS Number. Some entries have considerably more information. When online materials are available, they may include a recording of the interview, a transcript or summary or a photo album. The interviews may cover prewar and postwar activities in addition to their lives during war.

On the browse tab, you can browse by last name, by war and military branch, by state of residence, and by race/ethnicity. Available races are Black or African American, White, Asian, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, Other, and Unspecified. Only 20% of the project participants indicated a race. So this browse draws from a smaller pool of veterans.

However you browse, there’s no immediately obvious way to limit your results to items with digital collections. But instant gratification is available. If you look in the upper left hand corner of your search results, you ought to see a small search box with some terms in it already, like +(war:”worldwari”) +(displayBranch:”army nurse corps”). Click at the end of those search terms and type in +(digitalCollection:”yes”). If you want to have a transcript as well, use +(transcript:”yes”) as well.

When browsing by war and service, the available services are:

Air Force (Post WWII)

Air Force Nurse Corps (Post WWII)

Army

Army Air Forces/Corps

Army Nurse Corps

Cadet Nurse Corps

Coast Guard

Marine Corps

Merchant Marine

Navy

Navy Nurse Corps

SPAR (Women’s Coast Guard Reserve)

WAAC (Women’s Army Auxillary Corps)

WAC (Women’s Army Corps)

WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots)

Women Marines

Civilian (includes Japanese-Americans interned during WWII.)

All in all, this is just an amazing resource of first person accounts in difficult times and places.

This 53 page report by Maj General Antonio Taguba documents a number of incidents of torture and other abuse by US personnel in Iraq.
This report will both provide material for torture scenes and show how people involved either justified their actions or felt helpless to change things. For example, here is a guard testimony from page 18 of the PDF file:

SGT Javal S. Davis, 372nd MP Company, stated in his sworn statement as follows: “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section, wing 1A being made to do various things that I would question morally. In Wing 1A we were told that they had different rules and different SOP for treatment. I never saw a set of rules or SOP for that section just word of mouth. The Soldier in charge of 1A was Corporal Granier. He stated that the Agents and MI Soldiers would ask him to do things, but nothing was ever in writing he would complain (sic).”

When asked why the rules in 1A/1B were different than the rest of the wings, SGT Davis stated: “The rest of the wings are regular prisoners and 1A/B are Military Intelligence (MI) holds.” When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about this abuse, SGT Davis stated: “ Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse.” SGT Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: “Loosen this guy up for us.” Make sure he has a bad night.” “Make sure he gets the treatment.” He claimed these comments were made to CPL Granier and SSG Frederick. Finally, SGT Davis stated that (sic): “the MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Granier compliments on the way he has been handling the MI holds. Example being statements like, “Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re giving out good information, Finally, and Keep up the good work. Stuff like that.”

What are some suggestions for building up doctors resistance to cooperating in torture?

Description:

This 2003 British Medical Journal opinion item was was indexed by Medline, a service of the National Library of Medicine and features a first person perspective on medical involvement in torture in Argentina. The author is against torture and his views (if not his copyrighted words) might be helpful to physician characters who also oppose torture.

Who caught the first maritime prisoners of war during Operation Iraqi Freedom?

Where can I find an oral history of someone later killed in action?

What are the duties of a boarding officer in the Coast Guard?

Description:

Online bookshelf of materials relating to US Coast Guard participation in the invasion of Iraq aka Operation Iraqi Freedom. Links to after action reports, oral histories and lists of units deployed to the Persian Gulf.
This resource will be most useful to writers needing background for stories set in this war. Descriptions of the boarding activities and after action reports may help in military science fiction.

What sorts of duties would females in the Coast Guard be expected to perform?

What sorts of things does a Coast Guard member do after leaving the Coast Guard?

Description:

A 15 page oral history from a woman who joined the Coast Guard in 1974, served through 2001 and who was stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war. The history includes account of relations with Saudi and US Army personnel.

Why weren’t some units able to supply boots and replacement uniforms during Desert Storm?

What sorts of injuries did US field hospitals treat Iraqi soldiers for?

What sort of rations were provided to Iraqi POWs?

What sorts of concerns did a US airborne commander have for his unit?

Description:

From the web page, “Army soldiers assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps Command Historian’s Office conducted audio-taped interviews with other military personnel during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Most interviews took place in Saudi Arabia.”

The page is divided into the following sections

Individual interviews (Officers only)

Group interviews (Officers and enlisted)

Serial interviewers (Includes interviews with historian staff)

The subjects of interviews cover both genders and a variety of specialty fields. They should serve for providing backstory or with a little tweaking, war stories for fictitious wars. They also appear to provide nuts and bolts sorts of detail that could be useful for stories set during the First Gulf War.

Five first person accounts of service in Vietnam from members of the US Coast Guard. Includes information on rescues and offensive operations. Non-Vietnam information is also contained in these interviews. May be handy for character backstory.

Where can I find a story where a higher ranking officer set aside his pride for the cause?

What was it like to patrol rice paddies?

What should you do if a Marine told you to “make a hat” during the Vietnam War?

Description:

Author Captain West was an observer in all of the incidents documented in this book. According to the preface, these first hand accounts were documented by notes and taped interviews taken in the field. Each of the nine incidents portrayed begins with an introductory paragraph that sketches out the author’s involvement in the firefight. Photographs and sketches are included in the narrative that follows.

After the main text, there is a “Glossary of Marine Small Arms” (page 140 of the PDF file) that provides valuable background for the writer portraying US infantry weapons of this period. Basic specifications are provided without photographs. It is enough for a writer to understand which weapon should be used for each job.

What was it like for an American to lead a covert Vietnamese intelligence unit?

What was the life of an US military intelligence officer in the field?

What sorts of missions were undertaken by the Provincial Reconnaissance Units?

Description:

This is a book about Vietnamese spy units and the US advisers (military and CIA) who appeared to direct their activities. The book opens with some background about the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRU), then launches in to a set of eight first person accounts PRU advisers. A “typical operational scenario” is presented after the first person accounts.

The work concludes with chapters on lessons learned and sources, followed by a bibliography and an appendix of U.S.Marine Provincial Reconnaissance Unit Advisors.

Aces and Aerial Victories is a collection of firsthand accounts by Air Force fighter crews who flew combat missions over North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. They recall their air battles with enemy MIG fighters, the difficult and dangerous tactical maneuvers they had to perform to survive, and their victories and defeats. The narratives are taken directly from aircrew after-action reports. A number of direct quotations have been altered, but only to clarify for the reader the very specialized language of their profession (e.g., code words).

The work includes lists of illustrations, tables plus maps and charts. It also includes a glossary and index.

In addition to the first hand accounts mentioned above, writers should find chapter 4, The men: their units, tools and tactics to be helpful as it has many diagrams, tables, insignias, etc.